Askham Bryan Cricket Club

Askham Bryan I (124-4) beat Westow (121 all out) by six wickets (view photos)

A splendid day greeted the cricketers as they descended on the college for a sporting duel. However, not all was ideal…Rumours abounded that Askham captain Pete Wood may not make the game. Some even suggested he’d been dropped for repetitive over-achievement. In spite of this, Askham’s selection was not as difficult as Westow’s, who played with only 8 men.

In Mr. Wood’s absence, Vice Capitano Rob Dale succesfully lost the toss and Askham were invited to field on a dry but true looking wicket (yes, honestly, it was dry!).

Bowling
Jim “Sideshow” McCullogh opened the bowling with The Grewer. The Westow openers played well and were stout in defense to some excellent bowling, with Sideshow bowling one of his best spells of the season – 7 overs of pace bowling, varying his length to good effect to cause problems for the Westow batsmen. Mr Grewer also bowled tightly and was rewarded with a wicket, trapping one of the Westow openers LBW, with the score on 24.

Westow continued to plug away. Prateek came on to replace Sideshow, who was unlucky to be wicketless. Prateek bowled some good deliveries and had a number of LBW shouts turned down, whilst the Grewer continued to bowl well at the opposite end. Drinks were taken and Mr. Grewer was replace with Albert Hall.

Albert bowled his usual “pick n mix” of deliveries, with a few singles and an easy four coming from his first 5 balls. However, the final ball of the over gained some extra bounce off the pitch and the remaining opening batsman obligingly chopped a catch to an eager Mark Grewer at gully, going for 34. Prateek continued to bowl well at the opposite end, while Hall caused the batsmen further problems with his devastating lack of turn. In his third over he pitched up a ball which the new Westow bat decided to have a go at…and missed. Rob Dale snaffled the ball and made a deft stumping, to see Westow at 62-3.

Prateek was replaced at the far end by Alex Dickinson, who looked in good bowling form from the start. He and Albert plugged away until Alex was rightly rewarded with a wicket, clean bowling one of the Westow middle order. Albert was then replaced by Mr. Grewer to see if Askham could finish off the remaining Westow batsmen, needing only 3 further wickets for full bowling points. Alex continued his splendid form, following his previous wicket over with a wicket maiden with an important caught and bowled, removing the Westow top scorer for 37. In his following over he produced another beautiful, straight, pitched up delivery that clean bowled the batsman to get Alex his much deserved 3rd wicket.

Never to be outdone, the Grewer finished off the job at the other end, tempting one of the Westow tail to feather a catch to the obliging Rob Dale.

Overall, it was an excellent bowling performance. The fielding was at times a bit sloppy – with 4 or 5 dropped catches – but luckily these didn’t prove costly and in some cases (well, the chances off Albert’s rank full tosses) probably didn’t deserve wickets anyway.

Special mentions should go to:

• Rob, who had an excellent game behind the stumps, taking a catch and a stumping, but also making some fine saves (even earning himself a nonchalance fine in the process).
• Sam Grewer, who made his full Askham debut. And a fine performance it was too! Not only did he field brilliantly (saving at least 20 runs at fine leg, which was to prove important), he happily sprinted from one side of the pitch to the other at the end of each over and managed a superman-like change into cricket whites during the game! Will Sam take the mantel of “The Grewer” in years to come?
• Phil Theobold, who continues to embarass us all by being the best thrower in the team, and Dwaine Wilda, whose “bucket hands” scooped up anything near to him in the field

Tea
The tea was of good, solid, if unremarkable, quality. The pub did their usual fine job of laying on a good selection of sandwiches (cheese, tuna and others were noted). Likewise, there were some excellent nibbles (e.g. pork pie) and cakes. However, the tea perhaps lacked that killer item that would make it rise above previous weeks. Was it the lack of actual cups of tea? Or the lack of melon? The debate will, no doubt, continue.

Batting
Rob and Ian opened the batting again, giving the team a platform, if a very low one, to start with. Rob started off well, seeing off some tight opening bowling and grabbing a four to fine leg in the first over. Ian saw off the second over with a single off his legs and got a couple more in the third, before Rob was bowled. The Grewer stepped in and duly watched as Ian gave up his wicket attempting some kind of hook shot, that made its way straight back to the bowler, making the score 8-2.

Prateek and The Grewer then proceeded to get things back on track, defending well and taking singles and the odd couple where they could. Credit should be given to Westow, who fielded well and bowled very accurately, making the job difficult for Askham, despite only having 8 men. The two batsmen accumulated well, with Prateek playing some lovely shots and getting some nice boundaries as reward. The Grewer was content hitting ones and twos, until he found one “in the slot” and hit a big six over long on. Prateek departed by giving a catch to mid-on after scoring an important 23, which brought Alex Dickinson on strike, with the score 52-3, and a lot of batting left to do.

Alex looked in good touch straight away and continued the good work, hitting some lovely drives, scoring steadily throughout his innings. The two paced their innings well and continued to notch up the runs, with The Grewer fast approaching his fifty. Unfortunately, with the Westow score in sight, The Grewer gave a catch to point, ending up out on 47.

Mis Slezak then came in to finish off the job, hitting the ball with Polish certainty for 4 to finish the match off. Alex, meanwhile, ended on a well earned 30 not out.

Overall, a good win for Askham. Yes, the opposition may have been under strength, but Askham still had runs to chase and it was good to see these knocked off.

Who was man of the match? A tough call. The Grewer (senior) took 2-19 off his 13 overs, in addition to his 47 runs. Alex Dickinson took 3-17 off his 5 overs and hit 30 not out…A tough call. Who do you think? Post your thoughts in the comment box below…

This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Match Report. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.